Depending on where one stands on Washtenaw Avenue between Cross Street in Ypsilanti and Stadium Boulevard in Ann Arbor, 26,000 to 45,000 cars whiz – or crawl – by daily.

Congestion of some degree during daylight hours is a near constant and navigating the road can require reservoirs of patience and caution. The streets are lined with strip malls, fast food restaurants and seas of parking lots, and it’s a precarious corridor for pedestrians.

View full sizeA cross section of the Ann Arbor section of Washtenaw.courtesy photo

But now local leaders are presenting an entirely different vision for Washtenaw Avenue.

Instead of a five-lane state road that is widely regarded as one of the ugliest lines in the county, Reimagine Washtenaw’s planners and designers see a tree-lined street with buffered bike lanes, wide sidewalks and landscaped green space in the medians.

Their vision has a three- and four-lane roadway with lanes dedicated to public transit, and mixed-use, dense development that caters to foot traffic and public transit to create a vibrant yet quieter and safer main artery for Washtenaw County.

While the vision is a radical change from today's reality in the corridor, it’s what Reimagine Washtenaw presented on Wednesday to the Pittsfield Township Board of Trustees, and is what planning officials in the four communities along Washtenaw – the city of Ann Arbor, Pittsfield Township, Ypsilanti Township and city of Ypsilanti – hope to usher in over the coming decades.

“It’s the busiest transit corridor in the county while at the same time it’s showcasing desolate spaces and seas of asphalt throughout the corridor,” said Pittsfield Township Supervisor Mandy Grewal. “The opportunity for redevelopment exists throughout Washtenaw Avenue.”

Grewal, who helped develop Reimagine Washtenaw from its start six years ago, said the breakdown of how each municipalities' section of Washtenaw could look were a product of input from four public meetings in late May and through Reimagine’s website.

Background research by a subcommittee comprised of planners from the four municipalities, Washtenaw County, the Michigan Department of Transportation, Washtenaw County Road Commission, The Ride and Washtenaw Area Transportation Study also went into the decisions. Consultants from SmithGroup JJR assisted the subcommittee.

Grewal stressed that the final vision for the various stretches of roadway are likely decades off and contingent on private development and market forces allowing for shifts and alterations in the roadway’s cross-section.

Once there is denser development and improved public transit that reduces the number of cars on Washtenaw – cars that are needed to get from one point to another as the corridor stands today – then the general composition can change.

“The modality is not going to change until such time as the development changes,” Grewal said. “There’s no cross-connection between development on Washtenaw now and to go from one place to another you have to go onto Washtenaw in a car. Once development changes, and we have put in uniform parameters new guidelines (to attract denser development), then that’s where you are going to see shift to transit with fewer cars on Washtenaw.”

The draft plan calls for a four-lane road with a wide median from Stadium Boulevard to U.S. 23. The 44-foot landscaped median would be flanked by four 11-foot traffic lanes, two eight-foot buffered bike lanes and eight-foot “green” buffers. On one side of the road the design calls for a 12-foot sidewalk with dense development close to the road. On the other side plans have a six-foot sidewalk with parking just outside the public-right-of way.

Plans for the roadway in Pittsfield Township and Ypsilanti Township between Carpenter Road and Courtland Street include a 20-foot landscaped median with travel lanes for cars on either side of it and a lane dedicated to buses outside of the auto lanes. Those would be divided by an eight-foot bike lane.

As with the Ann Arbor section, the scenario calls for a 12-foot sidewalk with dense development close to the road on one side of the road and a six-foot sidewalk with parking just outside the public right-of way on the other side.

In the city of Ypsilanti, the roadway would be reduced to one lane in either direction with a left-turn lane, bike lane, 9.5-foot green buffer and similar sidewalk widths as the previous sections.

Improving mass transit's speed and efficiency of busing along the corridor is a key component. Planners hope would in turn increase The Ride’s desirability and ridership, and increased bus ridership would help take cars off the road.

The dedicated bus lanes are part of those improvements, as is the incorporation “transit signal priority” that would allow bus drivers to control when lights turn red or green. Bus queues would provide buses the chance to jump ahead of cars when lights turn green at an intersection.

“Super stops” that provide covered bike parking, signage, lighting, a nice shelter and digital readouts are planned throughout the corridor as are “transportation nodes” at which buses would actually pull up to a privately owned brick-and-mortar stop. Grewal said one such node is planned for the Golfside and Washtenaw intersection.

While these sort of significant changes are possibly decades off, the municipalities are doing what they can to improve the corridor now, Grewal said. That includes laying the groundwork for redevelopment through changes to zoning ordinances and master planes; adding bike lanes; and connecting sidewalks throughout the corridor.

Next, Reimagine Washtenaw will provide updates to each of the other three governments, though no dates are yet available. The subcommittee will develop mid block crossings and super stop concepts, and prior to a final meet with the public, phasing strategies will also be developed.

“I believe we’ve come a long way and the right-of-way study is the real culmination of that joint planning … and I hope going forward ... that we can bring some private development and dollars into region," Grewal said.